What if the Wattersons were Looney Tunes characters?/Animaniacs
Animaniacs is an American animated comedy television series created by Tom Ruegger. It is the second animated series produced by Amblin Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Animation, after Tiny Toon Adventures. The show first aired on the Fox Network as part of its Fox Kids block from 1993 to 1995 before moving to The WB in 1995 until the series ended in 1998 as part of its Kids' WB afternoon programming block. It initially ran a total of 99 episodes and one film, Wakko's Wish. Animaniacs is a variety show, with short skits featuring a large cast of characters. While the show had no set format, the majority of episodes were composed of three short mini-episodes, each starring a different set of characters, and bridging segments. Hallmarks of the series included its music, character catchphrases, and humor directed at an adult audience. A reboot of the series was announced by Hulu in January 2018, with two seasons to be produced in conjunction with Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, expected to air starting in 2020. Background Premise The Warner siblings live in the water tower on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California. However, characters from the series had episodes in various places and periods of time. The Animaniacs characters interacted with famous people and creators of the past and present as well as mythological characters and characters from contemporary pop culture and television. Andrea Romano, the casting and recording director of Animaniacs, said that the Warner siblings functioned to "tie the show together," by appearing in and introducing other characters' segments. Each Animaniacs episode usually consisted of two or three cartoon shorts. Animaniacs segments ranged in time, from bridging segments less than a minute long to episodes spanning the entire show length; writer Peter Hastings said that the varying episode lengths gave the show a "sketch comedy" atmosphere. Characters Animaniacs had a large cast of characters, separated into individual segments, with each pair or set of characters acting in its own plot. The Warner kids, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, were three cartoon stars from the 1930s that were locked away in the Warner Bros. Water Tower until the 1990s, when they escaped. After their escape, they often interacted with Warner Bros. studio workers, including Ralph the Security Guard; Dr. Otto Scratchansniff, the studio psychiatrist, and his assistant Hello Nurse. Pinky and the Brain are two genetically altered laboratory mice who continuously plot and attempt to take over the world. Slappy Squirrel is an octogenarian cartoon star who can easily outwit antagonists and uses her wiles to educate her nephew, Skippy Squirrel, about cartoon techniques. Additional principal characters included Rita and Runt, Buttons and Mindy, Chicken Boo, Flavio and Marita (The Hip Hippos), Katie Ka-Boom, and a trio of pigeons known as The Goodfeathers. Creation and inspiration The Animaniacs cast of characters had a variety of inspiration, from celebrities to writers' family members to other writers. Executive producer Steven Spielberg said that the irreverence in Looney Tunes cartoons inspired the Animaniacs cast. Tom Ruegger created Pinky and the Brain, a series Sherri Stoner had also written for, after being inspired by the personalities of two of his Tiny Toon Adventures colleagues, Eddie Fitzgerald and Tom Minton. Ruegger thought of the premise for Pinky and the Brain when wondering what would happen if Minton and Fitzgerald tried to take over the world. Deanna Oliver contributed The Goodfeathers scripts and the character Chicken Boo, while Nicholas Hollander based Katie Kaboom on his teenage daughter. Ruegger modeled the Warners' personalities heavily after his three sons. Because the Warners were portrayed as cartoon stars from the early 1930s, Ruegger and other artists for Animaniacs made the images of the Warners similar to cartoon characters of the early 1930s. Simple black and white drawings were very common in cartoons of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Buddy, Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and the early versions of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. Sherri Stoner created Slappy the Squirrel when another writer and friend of Stoner, John McCann, made fun of Stoner's career in TV movies playing troubled teenagers. When McCann joked that Sherri would be playing troubled teenagers when she was fifty years old, the latter developed the idea of Slappy's characteristics as an older person acting like a teenager. Stoner liked the idea of an aged cartoon character because an aged cartoon star would know the secrets of other cartoons and "have the dirt on them".